大象传媒

Afternoon on 3 with Verity Sharp

European Union Youth Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko, recorded last Tuesday at the 大象传媒 Proms, in Berio's witty Sinfonia, contrasted with Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony

Presented by Tom Service at the Royal Albert Hall, London

Berio: Sinfonia

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43

London Voices
European Union Youth Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko (conductor)

A contemporary classic opens this concert from the European Union Youth Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko. Berio's Sinfonia is a witty, whistle-stop tour through centuries of Western culture - a high-water mark of 1960s experimentalism, with musical references extending from Bach and Brahms to Boulez and The Beatles. The orchestra and eight amplified soloists muse their way through an intricate and joyous web of quotations that frustrate interpretation even as they invite it.

Shostakovich's embattled Fourth Symphony asks the same questions as Berio, trying to reconcile the same conflicts and contradictions and finding only Babel and madness in one of the composer's most confrontational works.

First broadcast 5th August 2014.